Scary Rednecks & Other Inbred Horrors (13 page)

Davey stepped from the passenger side of the car and brushed the residue of the burger and fries off his lap.
 
He paused to stuff the wrapper and box back into the paper bag before he joined his lifelong friend near the trunk.

“I’m sure as hell
gonna
miss you, Davey,” came Coleman’s slow drawl.
 
“Why the fuck y’all
gotta
leave the country for two years.
 
Can’t you just get your converts here?”

Davey winced at his friend’s choice of words.

“It’s just the way we do things, is all.
 
There’s only so much we can do around here and there’s so many who have yet to hear the word of God.
 
It’s our Mission to spread the word.”

Coleman inserted the keys into the lock and opened the trunk.
 
He peered at the struggling figure packed within and turned again to his friend.

“My Momma, she says y’all are
gonna
take over the world someday.”

Davey raised his lanky arm and punched the body in the trunk.
 
Two times.
 
Hard.
 
“Your Momma’s right.”

Coleman pulled the groaning skinhead from the trunk and let him fall to the ground.
 
He knelt down, careful to plant his knee firmly in the man’s crotch and checked the tape around the ankles, wrists and mouth.
 
He reached into his back pocket and pulled out the bent roll of silver duct tape.
 
The stickiness of the blood seeping from the man’s nose, missing teeth and cracked lips made the tape loose.
 
He reapplied it by adding two more glistening strips.
 

The skinhead’s eyes were crazy with fear as he watched Davey’s every movement.

Coleman stood and glanced around the clearing.

“I wished we didn’t have to carry this boy all the way in.”

“You can wish all you want,” said Davey.
 
“John Henry likes his privacy.”
 
He cocked his head and picked up the far sound of a howl.
 
“Do
ya
really blame him?”
 

A savage zest of unearthly howling raged from the roaring maw of a house that appeared to grow like a tangle of wood from amidst a mound of carefully collected junk.
 
The brown-gray boards vibrated and the black plastic garbage bags, taped over windowless frames, puffed in and out with frustrated rage.
 

An old man sat on the second step of the three-step porch, leaning back on elbows, feet kicked out.
 
He stared at the approaching boys.
 
The only movement was his left foot keeping beat to an internal song, the switch on his hearing aid turned to off.

They came dragging their burden by his arms, heels drawing snake-like furrows that surely traveled back the two miles to the car.
 
As they approached, Coleman smiled and nodded twice.
 
Davey patted the large swastika tattooed on the head between them.

“‘Bout time you boys made it around.
 
Vivi’s
getting righteous.
 
Done scared the dogs away thinking I’d have to send them in, instead.”

“You won’t believe where we found this one, John Henry,” said Davey, yelling over the demonic noise and making sure to look directly at the old man when he talked.

“Yeah, he was shit-kicking the hell out of this black dude right in the middle of Martin Luther King Boulevard.
 
Old Hitler here was acting like Mike Tyson at a Beauty Pageant and he never even saw Davey get him.
 
Ain’t
that right, Hitler?” asked Coleman, wrapping hard on the man’s head.

The skinhead’s eyes bulged like a road-kill cat as he stared at the open door of the house, entirely unable to fathom the source of the sound.
 
A pool of yellow began to mix with the mud below him.

“That’s not fair, Coleman.
 
It wasn’t like I snuck up on him.
 
If he’d been paying attention he could have blocked the crowbar.”
 
Davey cast a wounded glance at his friend.

“Aw shit.
 
Looky
here.
 
Old Hitler soiled
hisself
”

Davey glared at the limp form between them like a mother to a child and whipped his fist into the face—five, ten times.

“Hey, Boy!
 
This here’s the home of John Henry Wordsworth and it
ain’t
polite to take a crap without first
askin
’,” said Davey, leaning close in so the man could hear him over the noise.

John Henry reached over and mussed Davey’s thick mop of brown hair.
 
“Remember, Son.
 
There is nothing neither good or bad.
 
It’s thinking it that makes it so,” said John Henry, standing up and digging his hands in his pockets.
 
“I got
yer
money.
 
And I swear, if you’d taken any longer I was
gonna
have to find where the dogs had gotten to.”

“What you
gonna
do when I leave?” asked Davey, his face a little sad.

“Fear not, my boy.
 
Hunting
season’s
in two months and will provide a supply to last old
Vivi
through the winter.
 
I’ll miss
ya
, but don’t you worry.”

John Henry scratched his beard and leaned down to look into the skinhead’s rheumy eyes.
 
He pulled out a wickedly long knife and lifted the man’s chin up with the tip to get a better view.

“Let’s see who we have here.
 
Coleman, run and get the chair.”

The muscular boy let go of his burden and the skinhead immediately sagged to the ground.
 
Davey let his side go, as well, and wiped his hands on the sides of his pants, upset about the dirt and blood that had soiled them.
 
Coleman scampered around the side of the house and picked through a spiky pile of junk.
 
He returned a few minutes later with a grimy chair, made from white PVC tubing.

John Henry cut the tape around the wrists and ankles and the boys levered the captive heavily into the chair.
 
Within moments, the skinhead’s wrists were
retaped
to the chair’s arms, his ankles to its legs, and his forehead to a length of pipe that protruded two feet up from the back of the chair.

“Let’s see if he can talk,” said John Henry, glancing at Davey.

The gangly boy grasped the edge of the tape and jerked it free.
 
The skinhead immediately broke out into a scream, bubbles of blood popping through the ruined mouth and floating gently down to the dusty earth.
 
As loud as he was, it was a mere undertone to the rage blasting from the house.
 
Still, Coleman brought his boot up and into the man’s stomach, cutting off the scream in mid-terror.

John Henry leaned in, knelt down and perched an elbow on the skinhead’s leg.
 
“Cowards die many times before their deaths, the valiant never taste of death but once.
 
So why don’t you be our little Prince Valiant and just stop
yer
yammerin
’.
 
Stop worrying what’s going on with old
Vivi
and pay attention to what’s going on here.”
 
He locked eyes with the man and spoke to the boys.
 
“Check his wallet?”

Davey dug deep in his back pocket and pulled out a worn brown leather wallet.
 
Flipping it open, he said, “
Lemme
see.
 
He’s got eleven dollars, a few business cards.
 
Hey.
 
Here’s a coupon for two-for-one subs.”
 
He shoved the coupon and the money into his pocket and glanced happily at Coleman.
 
“
Finder’s
keepers. Okay, he also has a rubber.
 
Says, ribbed and lubricated.”

“Maybe that means he’s a clean one,” said Coleman.

“That would be nice for a change.
 
Sure make
Vivi
happy,” said John Henry.

“Okay, here it is,” said Davey, pulling out the driver’s license.
 
He looked from the license to the skinhead and back to the license several times.
 
“Ha.
 
You know I think he looks better bald.
 
His name is Edwin James Roomer.
 
Edwin.
 
I think Hitler is more fitting.”

“Come on, Davey.
 
Get on with it,” said Coleman, tracing his finger back and forth across the swastika design on the man’s head.

“Sorry man.
 
Says he’s not an organ donor.
 
Not very considerate of him.
 
Also says he’s AB negative.”
 
He looked excitedly at John Henry who had broken into a smile.
 
“Hey!
 
That’s her favorite,
ain’t
it?”

“Sure is,” said Coleman, who had been looking hard at Davey as he spoke.
 
“I think it’s time to ask him a few questions.
 
Get something to clean his mouth out, will
ya
, Coleman?
 
There’s too much blood for me to get a good gander at what he’s saying.”

Coleman scampered off again, but only went as far as the porch before he returned with a large Mason jar of clear liquid.

“Is this okay, John Henry?” he asked breathlessly.
 
“Alcohol kills germs on contact, right?”

John Henry nodded.
 
“So they say.
 
So they say.
 
It’s some nasty shit anyway.
 
Just some more of that old
Bloodsucker Special
.”

Coleman poured the white lightning over the skinhead’s face, making sure to get a liberal amount into the cracked and broken mouth.
 
A reciprocal scream erupted immediately, but it took a few moments before it
crescendoed
enough to be heard over the already agonizing din from the house.
 
The skinhead tossed his head back and forth, his eyes rolling up and arms struggling to rise as if to wipe the blistering toxin clear of his wounds.
 
His legs undulated and his entire frame rose in an arced bow that only returned to the chair after Davey’s fist buried itself into the man’s sternum.
 
It took several moments before the skinhead finally swooned back into fearful reality.

His eyes had locked once again on the howling door and it wasn’t until John Henry had tapped the knife on the man’s forehead several times that he looked at the old man kneeling, once again, before him.
 
A thin rivulet of blood ran the length of skinhead’s nose and dripped like an hourglass.

“Listen to what I have to say, boy.
 
It’s important.
 
Do I have your attention?”

It took two more pokes of the knife before the skinhead nodded.

“What were you
doin
’ beating on that black man?”

The skinhead blinked twice, his bloody, cracked lips trembling.

“Come on, Son.
 
You
gotta
answer the question.”

The skinhead tried to struggle, but stopped after a few small attempts.
 
His body sagged in the chair, as if it realized, finally, that it couldn’t escape.
 
He struggled to speak and it took him several tries before the words formed successfully.

“I didn’t really mean to hurt him bad.
 
I was just... ”

“Now, Now.
 
There’s no reason to be making up stories.
 
No reason at all.
 
You don’t want to meet your maker with a lie on your lips, now do
ya
?” asked John Henry, standing up stiffly.

He shoved the knife back in the sheath dangling from his leather belt.
 
He stepped back and appraised his prize, huddled and small in the chair.
 
He ran his hands through his thick mane of wild silver hair and knelt down once again.

“You have one chance.
 
One chance in the world to save yourself.
 
Are you ready?” asked John Henry.

The skinhead nodded, his head picking up pace until it threatened to come free from the body.